Constitution Daily» Civil Rightshttp://blog.constitutioncenter.org
Smart conversation from the National Constitution CenterTue, 03 Mar 2015 11:59:07 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.3Hiram Revels: The first African-American congressmanhttp://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/02/hiram-revels-the-first-african-american-congressman/
http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/02/hiram-revels-the-first-african-american-congressman/#respondWed, 25 Feb 2015 11:27:32 +0000http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/?p=37568On this day in 1870, an African-American politician was seated in the United States Senate for the first time, but only after Republican leaders rebuffed a challenge based on the infamous Dred Scott decision.

Hiram Rhodes Revels’s path to the Senate floor took him through numerous states as a freed black man born in North Carolina, school in Indiana and Ohio, and as a preacher and educator in Kansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

Revels also served in the Civil War as a chaplain and he was at the battles of Vicksburg and Jackson in Mississippi. After the war, he settled in Natchez, Mississippi, continuing his educational and religious works. But Revels slowly became in politics, first as a local alderman in 1868, and then as a member of the Mississippi state senate in the state’s Reconstruction-era government in 1869.

Revels caught the attention of the state senate’s leaders after he gave an inspirational prayer to open a session in January 1870. That session soon turned to the serious business of electing two U.S. Senators from Mississippi, to be sent to Washington after Mississippi was readmitted as a state in the Union. (In that era, state legislatures elected U.S. Senators.)

Seen as a moderate and as an educated man, Revels was put up for nomination and elected to the U.S. Senate by a 81 to 15 vote. He would fill the unexpired term of a Senator who quit in 1861, which ended in March 1871.

However, when Revels arrived in Washington in late January 1870, it was clear he would have opposition from people who objected to a black man serving in the U.S. Senate. There were still a handful of Southern Democrats in Congress and they raised several barriers.

The first argument was that a Senate candidate had to be a United States citizen for at least nine years before assuming office. This logic pointed to the Supreme Court’s controversial Dred Scott decision from 1857, which was interpreted to state that blacks of African-American ancestry weren’t American citizens, and that Revels had only been a citizen since the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868.

Another argument was that Mississippi was still under military rule and a civilian government needed to confirm Revel’s election. The issue came to a head on February 23, 1871, when Mississippi was officially admitted back into the Union, and a floor vote came up to seat Revels in the Senate.

After two days of debate, the vote came to seat Revels. In an account from theNew York Times, the historic nature of the moment was apparent.

“Mr. Revels, the colored Senator from Mississippi, was sworn in and admitted to his seat this afternoon at 4:40 o’clock. There was not an inch of standing or sitting room in the galleries, so densely were they packed; and to say that the interest was intense gives but a faint idea of the feeling which prevailed throughout the entire proceeding,” the Times said.

Republicans cut off objections from the southern Democrats, and the vote was 48-8 to let Revels take his Senate seat.

“The ceremony was short. Mr. Revels showed no embarrassment whatever, and his demeanor was as dignified as could be expected under the circumstances. The abuse which had been poured upon him and on his race during the last two days might well have shaken the nerves of any one,” the Times said.

Three weeks later, Revels gave his first speech to a packed Senate gallery about fears that Georgia would forbid blacks from holding public office using language that was part of its deal to gain admittance back to the Union.

“I remarked that I rose to plead for protection for the defenseless race that now sends their delegation to the seat of Government to sue for that which this Congress alone can secure to them. And here let me say further, that the people of the North owe to the colored race a deep obligation that is no easy matter to fulfill,” he said.

In his brief Senate career, Revels was seen as a moderate who opposed segregation and supported civil rights, but he also wanted amnesty for former Confederate soldiers. Revels chose not to seek more time in the Senate, and he left Washington in March 1871 to become the first president of what became Alcorn University, the first land grant school for African-Americans in the United States.

Revels remained active in the religious and educational communities for the rest of his life. He died on January 16, 1901, as he was attending a religious conference.

In 1875, Blanche Kelso Bruce, also of Mississippi and of African-American descent, was elected to the Senate and served a full six-year term.

It would be another 92 years until Edmund Brooke of Massachusetts became the third black to win a seat in the U.S. Senate.

]]>http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/02/hiram-revels-the-first-african-american-congressman/feed/0Federal judge orders Alabama official to issue same-sex marriage licenseshttp://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/02/federal-judge-orders-alabama-official-to-issue-same-sex-marriage-licenses/
http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/02/federal-judge-orders-alabama-official-to-issue-same-sex-marriage-licenses/#respondThu, 12 Feb 2015 22:36:28 +0000http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/?p=37372The gay-marriage debate in Alabama has taken another turn, after a federal judge overruled the state’s chief justice in a dispute over issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Shortly before close of business on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Callie V. S. Grande ruled that a local Alabama official must issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples—a direct response to recent actions by the state’s outspoken chief justice.

In late January, Granade issued an order finding the Alabama same-sex marriage ban amendment unconstitutional and enjoining the Alabama attorney general from enforcing it, with a 14-day stay for the chance to appeal.

But after the U.S. Supreme Court denied the attorney general’s appeal to put the marriages on hold, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore gave an order to probate judges not to issue same-sex marriage licenses.

Today’s ruling applies only to Don Davis, the local probate judge named in the case, but it nevertheless sends a message to judges statewide that they should defer to federal courts.

That may be hard to swallow for Moore, who has defended his view that the state’s same-sex marriage ban is still valid in an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Thursday morning.

With no definition of marriage in the federal constitution, Moore argued that the 2006 Sanctity of Marriage amendment in the Alabama constitution could not be struck down by federal judges.

Moore explained to Cuomo that “the opinion of a federal judge cannot mandate to state courts how they should judge under the law.” He said that he would continue to uphold the ban, regardless of how federal courts rule.

Moore also argued that the U.S. Supreme Court’s definition of marriage is and always has been of a man and a woman. In the landmark case Loving v. Virginia, for example, the Court ruled that a Virginia ban on interracial marriage was in violation of the constitution’s Due Process and Equal Protection clauses.

While some same-sex marriage advocates have pointed to this case to demonstrate the Court’s power to hold a state law limiting the fundamental right of marriage unconstitutional, Moore pointed out that Loving declared marriage “the right of free men and women to enter in the pursuit of happiness.”

It should be noted that the majority opinion in Loving does not say “free men and women” but instead says “free men.” Still, Moore uses this argument to claim that these unalienable rights cannot be taken away or mandated by the state.

At one point, the chief justice even turned to an obscure 1885 ruling in Murphy v. Ramsey, in which the Court referred to “the union for life of one man and one woman in the holy estate of matrimony” as “the sure foundation of all that is stable and noble in our civilization.”

Cuomo countered that these rights can, in fact, be taken away, using the example of slavery to show that the Court could alter an existing property right. Moore answered by citing the dissenting opinion of Justice Curtis from Dred Scott v. Sanford, which stated that the political opinions of the Court should not guide the Justices in their decisions.

For his part, Moore insisted that his own political opinions were not guiding his actions. When Cuomo raised the issue, Moore adamantly refuted the claim, saying, “This is not about my feelings; it’s about the law.”

Of course, Moore is no stranger to ideological battles. In 2003, he was removed from the Alabama Supreme Court by an ethics committee after his fight to keep a monument to the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Judicial Building. A decade later, he reclaimed the seat.

]]>http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/02/federal-judge-orders-alabama-official-to-issue-same-sex-marriage-licenses/feed/0Rosa Parks’ journey as a civil rights iconhttp://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/02/rosa-parks-journey-as-a-civil-rights-icon/
http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/02/rosa-parks-journey-as-a-civil-rights-icon/#respondWed, 04 Feb 2015 11:10:40 +0000http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/?p=37208On the occasion of Rosa Park’s birthday, Constitution Daily looks at her journey from a childhood in the segregated south to her enduring status as a civil rights icon.

On February 4, 1913, Rosa Louise McCauley was born in Tuskegee, Alabama. Her parents separated during the early part of her life, and Rosa and her mother lived her grandparents for a time, who were former slaves.

Rosa met and married Raymond Parks in 1932 at the age of 19. Raymond was a barber and an active member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (or NAACP). About a decade later, Rosa Parks joined NAACP’s Montgomery, Alabama chapter, and she later served as the secretary for that chapter.

Parks had attended a public meeting of concerned citizens in late November 1955 after the murder of black teenager Emmett Till. Parks also had attended a meeting in August 1955 with a new preacher in town, Martin Luther King, who spoke about the importance of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board decision about the legality of segregation.

The NAACP also had been looking for a test case about segregation on Montgomery’s bus system, but a first potential test case wasn’t feasible when its prospective plaintiff was found to be pregnant.

But then, Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955, after she refused to give up her seat on a crowded bus to a white passenger.

Contrary to some reports, Parks wasn’t physically tired and was able to leave her seat. She refused, on principle, to surrender her seat because of her race, which was the law in Montgomery at the time.

Parks was briefly jailed and paid a fine. But she was a long-time member of the NAACP and a highly respected person in her community, so the NAACP realized it had the right person to work with, as it battled against the system of segregation in Montgomery.

It also worked with another group of local leaders to stage a one-day boycott of passenger buses, when Parks went to court. The group expanded to include other people, chose a name, the Montgomery Improvement Association, and planned an extended boycott.

The MIA picked the 26-year-old King, who was a little-known pastor who had recently arrived in Montgomery, to lead the boycott.

The combination of the MIA, King, Parks, and a united African-American community made the boycott a success. About 75 percent of the public transportation customers in Montgomery were black, and they remained united for more than a year, as the boycott crippled revenues for the bus line. Parks lost her job and King’s home was attacked, but the movement kept the boycott in place for 381 days.

At the same time, the segregation fight was making its way to the Supreme Court.

On November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Browder v. Gayle, and it agreed with a district court that segregation on buses operating within Alabama’s boundaries was illegal, because it deprived people of equal protection under the 14th Amendment.

The legal team that had pursued the case for the NAACP included Thurgood Marshall, a future Supreme Court Justice. It had decided that Parks’ case would get tied up in the state court system and filed a separate suit on the behalf of four other women.

After the boycott ended, Parks had become a civil rights icon, and she and her husband Raymond moved to Virginia after experiencing a series of hardships, and then moved to Detroit.

Parks was disillusioned by discrimination in Detroit, but she befriended a young politician there, John Conyers. Parks worked for Conyers after his election to the House of Representatives, and she remained active in the civil rights community, and wrote several books.

When she passed away at the age of 92 in 2005, Congress voted to have Parks honored by having her coffin at the Capitol Rotunda for a public viewing.

At the time, she was only the 30th person accorded that honor. She was the first woman to receive the honor, and her coffin sat on the catafalque built for the coffin of Abraham Lincoln.

]]>http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/02/rosa-parks-journey-as-a-civil-rights-icon/feed/0The Supreme Court goes for a civil rights hat trickhttp://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/01/the-supreme-court-goes-for-a-civil-rights-hat-trick/
http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/01/the-supreme-court-goes-for-a-civil-rights-hat-trick/#respondMon, 26 Jan 2015 10:30:56 +0000http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/?p=37062Amid the swirl of excitement following the Supreme Court’s decision to consider the issue of same-sex marriage, you may have missed news of a housing discrimination case that could have huge implications for civil rights.

The case began in 2008, when the Inclusive Communities Project filed a lawsuit against the Texas state agency for the distribution of tax credits in a way that reinforces and increases racial segregation. Because landlords who receive the tax credits are required to accept affordable-housing vouchers from low-income tenants—many of whom come from minority communities—the allocation of those credits has an outsized impact on racial housing patterns.

Courts at the district and circuit levels agreed with the ICP, concluding that Texas’ distribution of tax credits violated the FHA because of its “disparate impact” on minorities. Critical to those rulings, and to the current fight at the Supreme Court, is an understanding that disparate impact requires evidence not of intentional discrimination, but merely of harmful effects.

In fact, that understanding of the law—one resting on impact, not intent—has been upheld by all 11 federal circuit courts. The ICP, supported by the federal government, also argues that this understanding is in concert with Congress’ original intent in passing the law, seeking to combat both intentional discrimination and the subtle, hidden practices that reach the same result.

On the other hand, Texas points to the text of the FHA, which says it is illegal to “refuse to sell or rent … or to refuse to negotiate for the sale or rental of, or otherwise make unavailable or deny, a dwelling to any person because of race” [emphasis added]. The plain text suggests the law is limited to explicit acts of discrimination and nothing more.

“The law consists not just of what Congress did in 1968, but also what it did in ’88,” he said, referring to later amendments to the FHA. “And you look at the whole law … and if you read those two provisions together, it seems to be an acknowledgment that there is such a thing as disparate impact.”

In essence, Justice Scalia argued that the fact that Congress wrote in FHA exemptions to disparate-impact claims in the 1988 amendments is evidence that Congress affirmed the legitimacy of such claims.

“Racial disparity is not racial discrimination,” he said. “The fact that the NFL … is largely black players is not discrimination. Discrimination requires intentionally excluding people of a certain race.”

Other Justices played familiar roles.

“This has been the law of the United States uniformly throughout the United States for 35 years, it is important, and all the horribles that are painted don’t seem to have happened, or at least we have survived them,” said Justice Stephen Breyer of the FHA. “So why should this court suddenly come in and reverse an important law which seems to have worked out in a way that is helpful to many people, [and] has not produced disaster?”

“Is there a way to avoid a disparate-impact consequence without taking race into account in carrying out the governmental activity?” countered Chief Justice John Roberts. “It seems to me that if the objection is that there aren’t a sufficient number of minorities in a particular project, you have to look at the race until you get whatever you regard as the right target.”

Given the Supreme Court has tried twice before to rule on cases like this one, despite a lack of doctrinal disagreement among the lower courts, supporters of disparate-impact theory have little reason to be optimistic about the outcome.

Still, one never knows how the Court will ultimately shake out. Maybe the third time will be the charm that stops the charge.

]]>http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/01/the-supreme-court-goes-for-a-civil-rights-hat-trick/feed/0Disparate impact liability under the Fair Housing Act: Inclusion is not a zero-sum gamehttp://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/01/disparate-impact-liability-under-the-fair-housing-act-inclusion-is-not-a-zero-sum-game/
http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/01/disparate-impact-liability-under-the-fair-housing-act-inclusion-is-not-a-zero-sum-game/#respondWed, 21 Jan 2015 10:30:46 +0000http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/?p=36998In this commentary, Stacy E. Seicshnaydre from Tulane University Law argues that the disparate impact case in front of the Supreme Court today is about promoting integration as a core purpose of the Fair Housing Act, and not an assault on the Constitution.

The Fair Housing Act (FHA) case to be argued in the Supreme Court today will decide whether the FHA can be used to counteract unintended segregation and thoughtless exclusion, or only intentional housing discrimination. Eleven circuit courts have considered the question over four decades and all agree to allow disparate impact claims under the FHA.

The path of least resistance results in the concentration of affordable housing in neighborhoods the Rev. Martin Luther King described as ghettos. The FHA was passed shortly after King’s assassination to address, within constitutional limits, crippling housing segregation. The race-neutral remedy in the case before the Court, Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairsv. Inclusive Communities Project, fulfills the FHA’s purpose by facilitating the creation of affordable housing options outside of racially segregated, high-poverty areas.

The district court found that Texas had violated the FHA under a disparate impact theory by disproportionately approving tax-credit, affordable housing projects in minority areas, areas Inclusive Communities Project (ICP) argued were marked by conditions of slum and blight. The court accepted the state’s justification for its method of awarding tax credits but found that less discriminatory alternatives existed. The remedial plan proposed by the state and ordered by the district court assigned extra points for tax-credit projects located in higher income, lower-poverty neighborhoods with good schools. Texas also obtained approval to award an equal amount of points for projects in neighborhoods where actual revitalization efforts were occurring. Importantly, sites located near hazardous and nuisance conditions, such as high-crime areas, industrial uses and landfills, were ineligible for housing assistance. Tenants of tax-credit housing were to receive fair housing notices informing them of possible housing opportunities in lower-poverty areas with good schools.

The ICP remedy promotes integration as a core purpose of the FHA; it does not assault the Constitution. The remedy does not create racial preferences, set-asides, or quotas. It does not classify housing recipients by race, distribute benefits based on race, disqualify neighborhoods based on race, or mandate racial balancing. The remedy facilitates upward economic mobility for low-income housing consumers within a market economy. Expanding affordable housing choices outside of high-poverty areas is a race-neutral action that can help reverse racial segregation.

Disparate impact remedies in other FHA cases similarly increase access to housing opportunities without using racial preferences. Housing options expand when owners of rental property fine-tune their standards to avoid the unnecessary exclusion of families or disabled persons. Rental markets are opened for all when zoning authorities reverse unjustified bans on multi-family housing. All consumers benefit when mortgage lenders fine-tune the criteria they apply to determine who will build intergenerational wealth to ensure that the criteria actually measure credit risk. The FHA is concerned with inclusion, and inclusion is not a zero-sum game.

Texas did not raise constitutional defenses in the lower court proceedings. Now, the state raises the specter of constitutional violations (among other concerns) as a means of obliterating the disparate impact standard in all FHA cases for all time. The state argues that disparate impact theory requires entities to consider the racial impact of their practices and take race-based action. The state argues that disparate impact theory must be rejected to avoid serious constitutional questions.

But the state is wrong. That argument ignores the actual facts of FHA cases and certainly ignores the facts of the ICP case. Noticing the exclusion of protected groups from opportunity-rich places and implementing race-neutral methods of opening access to such places is on firm constitutional ground. Those who argue otherwise are promoting a form of color-blindness that assumes separate is equal: we must ignore racial isolation, and governments must affirmatively ignore the segregating and exclusionary effects of their activities. Moreover, the argument goes, we must reject any race-neutral, inclusionary activities if they are designed to address prior exclusionary activities. Justice Anthony Kennedy is unlikely to embrace this extreme form of color-blind reasoning.

It would be an assault on the FHA to forbid housing entities from taking steps to counteract racial residential segregation. It is a non sequitur to answer that some developers prefer to build affordable housing in high-poverty areas with hazardous conditions, inadequate schools and limited employment opportunities. Nearly all affordable housing exists in such areas, whereas there is a dearth of affordable housing elsewhere.

If any state can afford to spread its affordable housing around, it is the economically and land-rich state of Texas, the second most populous state in the country with four of the top-20 fastest growing metropolitan areas in the nation. Rather than ask the ahistorical question of whether the FHA can be used to counteract unintended segregation and thoughtless exclusion, we should be asking why litigation is even necessary to bring about desegregated housing choices almost 50 years after the FHA was passed.

Stacy E. Seicshnaydre is the William K. Christovich Associate Professor of Law and Director, Civil Litigation Clinic, of the Tulane University Law School. She is also a member of the board of the Inclusive Communities Project.

]]>http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/01/disparate-impact-liability-under-the-fair-housing-act-inclusion-is-not-a-zero-sum-game/feed/0How Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday became a holidayhttp://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/01/how-martin-luther-king-jr-s-birthday-became-a-holiday-3/
http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/01/how-martin-luther-king-jr-s-birthday-became-a-holiday-3/#respondMon, 19 Jan 2015 11:20:49 +0000http://blog-dev.constitutioncenter.org/?p=20851The fight to make Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a holiday took 32 years, a lot of campaigning, and guest appearances including Stevie Wonder, Ted Kennedy, and the National Football League.

Officially, Dr. King’s birthday was approved as a federal holiday in 1983. He was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta. But the King holiday is marked on the third Monday in January.

By 2000, all 50 states recognized the King birthday as a government holiday.

The King Center in Atlanta has a detailed chronology of how the efforts, starting shortly after Dr. King’s death in 1968, paid off in the long run. It wasn’t an easy task for holiday supporters, who had to push hard in Congress to get the federal holiday created.

A second battle took place to get individual states to also recognize the holiday, with often emotional disagreements in two states.

Today, the King holiday serves multiple purposes: It honors the total legacy of Dr. King; focuses on the issue of civil rights; highlights the use of nonviolence to promote change; and calls people into public service.

The struggle to get the holiday recognized reflects all these topics, along with some interesting twists and turns along the way.

Representative John Conyers introduced the first motion to make Dr. King’s birthday a federal holiday in 1968, just four days after Dr. King’s assassination in Memphis. It took another 11 years to the federal holiday to come up for a vote on the House of Representative’s floor in 1979.

The holiday’s supporters regrouped and intensified their efforts. Musician Stevie Wonder helped in 1981 by releasing the song “Happy Birthday” to promote the holiday. (He would later sing it at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial dedication in 2011).)

The King Center kept up its efforts. It organized a march on Washington that included an estimated 500,000 people. Coretta Scott King, along with Wonder, presented a petition signed by 6 million people to House leader Tip O’Neill.

The House took up the bill in 1983 and it passed by 53 votes. Democrats O’Neill and Jim Wright, along with Republicans Jack Kemp and Newt Gingrich, gave speeches supporting the King holiday.

But getting the bill passed in the Senate would be contentious. Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina openly opposed it. At first, Helms introduced a filibuster, and then he presented a 400-page file that accused Dr. King of being a communist.

Senator Ted Kennedy criticized Helms and Senator Daniel Moynihan called the document “filth” and threw it on the Senate floor.

Despite Helms, the bill passed the Senate by 12 votes–even South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond voted in favor of the King holiday.

President Ronald Reagan signed the bill in November 1983. The first federal King holiday was celebrated in 1986.

It took longer for the 50 states to adopt the holiday. By 1986, 17 states had already adopted it. But there was strong resistance in Arizona to passing a state holiday.

The fight between state legislators came to a head when the King holiday was put up for an Arizona voter referendum in November 1990.

There was also a fight in South Carolina over the holiday. It was one of the last states to approve a paid King holiday for state employees in 2000.

The state’s governor had tried to link the holiday to a commitment to allow the state house to fly the Confederate battle flag. Instead, he signed a bill that approved the King holiday along with a Confederate Memorial Day celebrated in May.

]]>http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/01/how-martin-luther-king-jr-s-birthday-became-a-holiday-3/feed/010 famous quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/01/10-famous-quotes-from-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-2/
http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/01/10-famous-quotes-from-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-2/#respondMon, 19 Jan 2015 09:00:57 +0000http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/?p=24248Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the most quotable speakers of the 20th century. Here are 10 statements from King’s 13-year career as a public figure that defined his quest.

The quotes come from public speeches given by King, a letter, and one of his books. Each section contains a link to the original source.

If you want to read more quotes, check out the resources at the end of this story.

10 famous quotes

1. “We are not wrong, we are not wrong in what we are doing. If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. And if we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong. If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to Earth. If we are wrong, justice is a lie, love has no meaning. And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

3. “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. The true neighbor will risk his position, his prestige, and even his life for the welfare of others.”

4. “There are some things so dear, some things so precious, some things so eternally true, that they are worth dying for. And I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.”

5. “When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’ ”

7. “We’ve been in the mountain of war. We’ve been in the mountain of violence. We’ve been in the mountain of hatred long enough. It is necessary to move on now, but only by moving out of this mountain can we move to the promised land of justice and brotherhood and the Kingdom of God. It all boils down to the fact that we must never allow ourselves to become satisfied with unattained goals. We must always maintain a kind of divine discontent.”

8. “When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

9. “We all have the drum major instinct. We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead the parade. … And the great issue of life is to harness the drum major instinct. It is a good instinct if you don’t distort it and pervert it. Don’t give it up. Keep feeling the need for being important. Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be the first in love. I want you to be the first in moral excellence. I want you to be the first in generosity.”

10. “Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like any man, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

]]>http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/01/10-famous-quotes-from-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-2/feed/0Constitution Hall Pass: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/01/constitution-hall-pass-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-2/
http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/01/constitution-hall-pass-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-2/#respondThu, 15 Jan 2015 10:55:21 +0000http://blog-dev.constitutioncenter.org/?p=20821Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. saw himself as a servant of humanity and wanted his life to be remembered as a life of service to others.

Today marks Dr. King’s birthday on January 15, 1929.

In this episode of the Constitution Hall Pass, we look at Dr. King’s legacy of service and explore how his use of nonviolence was not just a political tool but a way to demonstrate service to others.

]]>http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/01/constitution-hall-pass-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-2/feed/0Five interesting facts about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/01/five-interesting-facts-about-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-2/
http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/01/five-interesting-facts-about-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-2/#respondThu, 15 Jan 2015 10:00:34 +0000http://blog-dev.constitutioncenter.org/?p=20823Constitution Daily looks back at the inspirational story of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and uncovers some interesting facts about the late civil rights leader’s life.

Dr. King was born in Atlanta on January 15, 1929, and died in Memphis on April 4, 1968. Dr. King’s legacy extends into today and he remains one of the most discussed leaders of our time.

Among that discussion are some interesting facts that lend some insight into the man.

Fact 1: Dr. King got a C in public speaking at seminary school. Dr. King’s father, a preacher in Atlanta, thought his son was the best speaker he’d ever seen, before he went away to seminary school. But in his first year of seminary school in Chester, Pennsylvania, one of Dr. King’s professors gave him a C in a public speaking course! In his third and final year, Dr. King was valedictorian with straight A’s.

Fact 2: While at Crozer Theological Seminary, Dr. King was introduced to the teachings and philosophies of Mohandas Gandhi. Dr. King entered Crozer in the fall of 1948, after Gandhi was assassinated in January 1948 in India. In an interview, Dr. King said he attended a lecture from the president of Howard University given in Philadelphia about Gandhi, and he immediately became “deeply influenced” by the philosophy of nonviolence.

Fact 3: Dr. King was virtually unknown when he was named as spokesman for the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955. He had recently arrived in Alabama, and the leaders of the boycott, which was sparked by Rosa Parks’ decision to keep her bus seat, wanted a newcomer to be the public voice of the movement. There were concerns that some rivalries within the movement could present problems, and Dr. King was picked as a bipartisan leader.

Fact 4. Dr. King apparently improvised parts of the “I Have A Dream” speech in August 1963, including its title passage. Clarence B. Jones worked on the draft of the speech, which was being revised up to the time Dr. King took the podium. He says Dr. King’s remarks were up in the air about 12 hours before he spoke, and the “dream” reference wasn’t in the speech. Dr. King later added it live when singer Mahalia Jackson prompted him to speak about the “dream.” In June 1963, Dr. King had talked about his dream in a speech in Detroit.

Fact 5. When Dr. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, at the time he was the youngest Peace Prize winner ever, at the age of 35. Currently, Malala Yousafzai is the youngest winner on record; she was 17 when she won the prize in 2014. His acceptance speech in Norway included the famous statement, “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.”

]]>http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/01/five-interesting-facts-about-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-2/feed/0Korematsu: A decision that is still questioned todayhttp://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2014/12/korematsu-a-decision-that-will-live-in-infamy/
http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2014/12/korematsu-a-decision-that-will-live-in-infamy/#respondThu, 18 Dec 2014 13:00:41 +0000http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/?p=30361On December 18, 1944, the Supreme Court announced one of its most controversial decisions ever. The Korematsu decision is still controversial, since it allowed the federal government to detain a person based on their race during a wartime situation.

The Korematsu case ranked with the Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson decisions as the worst ever made by the Court.

“One of the worst aspects of American history is that at times of crisis we compromise our most basic constitutional rights, and only in hindsight do we recognize that it didn’t make us safer,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, from the University of California Irvine.

To put that in context, the Dred Scott decision said that the descendants of slaves weren’t entitled to protection by the Constitution. The Plessy decision established the “separate but equal” rule that allowed segregation to continue for decades.

Jamal Greene, another scholar, ranked Korematsu among four “worst-case” scenarios in a 2011 Harvard Law Review article (along with Dred Scott, Plessy and the Lochner labor-law case).

Peter Irons, a law professor who represented Fred Korematsu in his 1983 successful effort to get his wartime conviction overturned, is campaigning to get the Supreme Court to apologize for its 1944 decision.

Irons says the Court should “issue a public statement acknowledging that these decisions were based upon numerous and knowing acts of governmental misconduct before the Court … that has left a stain on the Court’s integrity that requires the long overdue correction of public repudiation and apology, as both the legislative and executive branches of the federal government–to their credit–have now done.”

In 2009, Los Angeles Times Supreme Court correspondent David G. Savage wrote in the ABA Journal that Dred Scott, Plessy and Korematsu were the three Supreme Court decisions that liberals and conservatives agreed were historically bad.

“After that, it depends on which side of the political aisle the experts occupy,” he said.

So what led to the Korematsu decision?

On December 7, 1941, Japanese military forces attacked the United States base in Hawaii without warning. More than 2,000 Americans died in the attack, and a united Congress answered President Franklin Roosevelt’s request for war.

In early 1942, President Roosevelt issued Presidential Executive Order 9066, after fears generated by the Japanese attack made the safety of America’s West Coast a priority.

The order started a process that gave the military power to exclude citizens of Japanese ancestry from regions called “military areas.”

Under another provision, called Exclusion Order No. 34, a Japanese-American citizen named Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu was arrested for going into hiding in Northern California after refusing to go to an internment camp.

There were 10 camps set up nationally, and about 120,000 people were interned in the camps during the war. About two-thirds of them were Japanese-Americans who were born in the United States.

Korematsu appealed his conviction through the legal system, and the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in late 1944.

The court had heard a similar case in 1943, Hirabayashi v. United States, and decided that Gordon Hirabayashi, a college student, was guilty of violating a curfew order.

The Korematsu v. U.S.decision referenced the Hirabayashi case, but it also ruled on the ability of the military, in times of war, to exclude and intern minority groups.

The court ruled by a 6 to 3 vote that the government had the power to arrest and intern Fred Korematsu. Justice Hugo Black, writing for the majority, included a paragraph that is still debated today:

“It should be noted, to begin with, that all legal restrictions which curtail the civil rights of a single racial group are immediately suspect. That is not to say that all such restrictions are unconstitutional. It is to say that courts must subject them to the most rigid scrutiny. Pressing public necessity may sometimes justify the existence of such restrictions; racial antagonism never can,” Black said.

Later in the decision, Black argued the necessity of the military’s decision.

“Korematsu was not excluded from the Military Area because of hostility to him or his race. He was excluded because we are at war with the Japanese Empire, because the properly constituted military authorities feared an invasion of our West Coast and felt constrained to take proper security measures, because they decided that the military urgency of the situation demanded that all citizens of Japanese ancestry be segregated from the West Coast temporarily,” he said.

The three dissenting Justices said Korematsu’s constitutional rights had been clearly violated.

“I dissent, because I think the indisputable facts exhibit a clear violation of Constitutional rights,” said Justice Owen Roberts.

“Such exclusion goes over ‘the very brink of constitutional power,’ and falls into the ugly abyss of racism,” said Justice Frank Murphy. “The broad provisions of the Bill of Rights… are [not] suspended by the mere existence of a state of war. Distinctions based on color and ancestry are utterly inconsistent with our traditions and ideals.”

In subsequent years, the American internment policy has been met with harsh criticism. In 1988, Congress awarded restitution payments of $20,000 to each survivor of the 10 camps.

As part of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, Congress apologized “on behalf of the people of the United States for the evacuation, relocation, and internment of such citizens and permanent resident aliens.”

President Bill Clinton awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Korematsu in 1998, and President Barack Obama bestowed the same honor on Hirabayashi in 2012.

During the 1999 ceremony, Clinton said, “In the long history of our country’s constant search for justice, some names of ordinary citizens stand for millions of souls–Plessy, Brown, Parks. To that distinguished list today we add the name of Fred Korematsu.”

And in 1983, federal courts had also overturned the original convictions of Hirabayashi and Korematsu.